Praj inks alliance with Meura for high performance Brewery Mash Filters

Praj Industries Ltd has on October 31, 2006 announced that keeping in mind the need for rapid expansion of capacity, as well as higher capacities being planned by new breweries, the Company has forged an alliance with Meura, Belgium for supply of Mash Filters in India and the Subcontinent. Meura is a pioneer in Mash Filters. The Meura range of filters can replace the traditional Lauter Tuns / brewhouse equipment which performs the task of extracting the wort form the malt. The Meura range can be most appropriately applied to breweries planning capacities higher than 0.5 million HLPA.

The Mash Filter delivers 100% extraction efficiency and is also more tolerant to varying raw materials. It consumes lower energy and generates lesser wastewater when compared to the traditional brewhouse equipment.

These Filters are ideal for revamping existing brewhouses, due to the tower space requirement.

For breweries with lower capacities, the Company will continue to supply the high performance Lautertun / brewhouse which has been recently upgraded for delivering 10 brews per day. The Company has successfully conducted the trial for 10 brews per day at a brewery in Tamil Nadu. This technology upgradation has been developed in-house.

The 90 million cases per annum brewing industry in India is going through sea change leading to consolidation and entry of new players in the industry. Poised to grow at 10-15% pa., this industry has already seen capacity enhancement and will continue to see further growth in capacity to meet the increased demand.

"Praj, leaders in brewery engineering, have been expanding and working towards raising the technology bar. Praj partners leading beer producers for their requirement of state-of-the-art engineering and brewery equipment. Beer producers, who were so far planning a capacity under half million HLPA are now planning higher capacities right at the beginning. This throws up a need to radically re-think the engineering and equipment needs for the industry", said Pramod Chaudhari, Chairman, of the Company.

The Company has recently invested in a fourth workshop for fabrication of equipment and enhanced productivity at the current workshops with addition of automatic machines including the welding machines and the polishing machines which are the key processes for manufacture of beer equipment. The Company already has a dedicated workshop for brewery equipment in Pune.

The Company has recently completed two breweries, one in Orissa and another in Bhutan. The Company is executing projects for UB-S&N’s greenfield plant in Rajasthan, SAB's Rochee’s Brewery in Rajasthan and many expansion projects in India. The Company is executing Greenfield Brewery project in Hyderabad for Crown Beers International who have tied up with Anheuser Busch. The Company has been making significant headways in the brewery field too.

Source : Equity Bulls

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